Richard Rhor (2) - "The Naked Now" - Dualism. Ken Wilber insufficient

I have further thoughts also about the dualist/non-dualist dualism! I think Richard R is being very fair and wise in the way he chooses his words. He recognises duality thinking to be something that has been very beneficial to our culture: P32 - "Binary thinking is not wrong or bad in itself. In fact it is necessary in many if not most situations..". Also he is willing to own his own tendencies towards such ways of thinking (p40).
JESUS AND NON-DUALISTIC THINKING
The values of non-dualistic thinking are evident in his experience. It is also evident in some of the teaching of Jesus in the gospels that He is non-dualistic. The one that stands out for me is the fact that when he was challenged with questions (perhaps at the attempt to control) Jesus simply answered with another question perhaps switching the balance of power or simply refusing to be forced in the 'either/or' way of thinking. I love it!

JESUS AND DUALISTIC THINKING
However on page 32 RR goes on to say that dualistic thinking is "completely inadequate for the major questions and dilemmas of life" but in my mind this is precisely where Jesus comes down strongest on the dualistic side. To deny this would be to do the gospels a great injustice. The idea of conflict is central to the life of Jesus. Again this is not to devalue non-binary thought but if we reduce the life and teaching of Jesus to it exclusively it would be  too simplistic and convenient. Reading the gospels is an untidy business and in them non dualism and dualism rest side by side.

INTEGRAL LIFE
Integral Life and the likes seem to say anything that purports to be anything less than unitive (non-dualistic) is of a lower order
I quote from a post on Integral Life:
The Wilber Integral Vision is generally good at seeing different traditions in their own terms and integrating them through a pluralistic/aperspectival vision or seeing how they fit via "orienting generalization", to the larger model.  However this model is biased towards non-dual traditions which are radically apophatic, causing blind spots in looking at traditions which are not.  The outcome is, that Wilber's Vision seeks out the spiritual representatives in each tradition which confirm his model, and writes off the ones that don't as simply being "lower" on the color scale (e.g. they may be authentic representatives of a tradition, but at a lower level, then this enlightened fellow whose model we are endorsing).  This means that the Wilber model sets up a perspective which is not questioned, but used to evaluate all other traditions. This can lead to a type of Integral Facism! (we the elite understand you, you must grow according to our model).

ABSOLUTE DUALISM
I put forward the idea that non-dual consciousness is not an end but a means to something higher to which Jesus, His teaching and life call us. He calls us to a new type of dualism - an absolute dualism. A relative dualism is one that consists of equal and opposites but an absolute dualism is one where one side of the dual is superior. Through Jesus light conquers darkness, Life conquers death, Love conquers hatred. How? Through the Cross where Love non-dualistically absorbs the hatred and in so doing overcomes it dualistically! In the Cross the dichotomy between the two ways of thinking is transcended through this Absolute dualism.

Just a thought but in my mind Centering prayer is not to lead us ultimately to a passive state of acceptance most perfectly symbolised by the inward looking of the Buddha important as this is. The symbol of Christianity is the Cross – The symbol of the agonising Saviour-God reaching out to embrace a suffering world in love. Whilst we accept the injustices of the world as the ‘way of it’ we are to be those who do not leave it there but in the spirit of love go out and make a difference pro-actively which I am sure many of you are doing so much more than I. The negative side of dualistic thinking, for the purposes of his argument, has been adequately documented by RR.  However, so much has been and is being accomplished by the Church and that not necessarily by those who hold exclusively to the non-dualistic mindset.

Richard Rhor - "The Naked Now" - Movement and Stillness

On page 23 of Richard Rohr's book "The Naked Now" “God becomes more of a verb than a noun, more a process than a conclusion, more a personal relationship” (ref a message by RR on the Trinity)
This  has been reminding me of some thoughts I have had recently about prayer being a dynamic participation with a Living God. We all instinctively relate contemplative prayer with stillness and there has been at least within me the intention of looking for that ‘still point’. However in prayer we are entering into ‘perichoresis’ (“ dance around") of the Trinity and therefore also entering into movement - a self emptying movement (kenosis). This became very clear when I heard a message by Cynthia Bourgeault on Kenosis as well as reading her books. My intention now in prayer is not static or containable but to, in the stillness,  recognise ‘not the noun but the verb’ and 'not the conclusion but the process’ referred to by RR. As the Psalmist says in Psalm 46 ‘Be still and know that I am God’ indicating stillness ... yet earlier on there is the verse that says ‘There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God’ indicating movement. Furthermore on reading TS Eliot’s ‘Burnt Norton’ from the 4 quartets he says so brilliantly ...

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.

And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.

The inner freedom from the practical desire,

The release from action and suffering, release from the inner

And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded

By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving ....

In the mind of God stillness and movement are not opposites but are held together in a way only He can do!
Praise Him!

Duality or Non Duality ... which is best? ;o)

Well how have the past few days of discovery panned out. In between gardening and more gardening (which I thoroughly enjoy) I have been doing some research. Having been so enamoured with my latest discoveries along the esoteric road - not least Eckhart Tolle I decided to backtrack. I am never too comfortable in throwing myself 'hook line and sinker' into things without stepping back and looking more objectively. However I reckon I have immersed myself into Tolle's philosophy enough to understand experientially where he is coming from. Definitely I conclude that Tolle and other modern day mystics have alot to offer in terms of finding the present moment and the fulfilment contained therein. However I  am not sure that I would agree with the religious interpretations and applications. The present moment is given to all ... we miss out in using it as a means to the future or living in the past ... but we do not have to spiritualise it anymore than we should spiritualise anything else we have in common ... an arm or a leg. The present moment is a given fact which Eckhart and others have kindly enabled us to see. How we interpret that fact and what we choose to do with it is another matter ...

Now my little web discoveries. Thanks to Fr Thomas Keating for whom I have alot of respect (3 books I recommend: Open Heart open Mind and Invitation to Love and Intimacy with God) I ended up giving my email address to Integral Life, Ken Wilber's big project. An email with a list of the latest posts lead me to (at long last!) a thinking Christian's contribution to non duality holding both the value of Buddhist concepts of non duality as a meeting point and also holding forth the Christian distinctiveness in a sensitive manner. Check out his post and the responses he was given: The role of Jesus in inter-spiritual dialogue by Cameron Freeman. Check out another of his posts entitled Good Friday: The impossibility of Nirvana. Excellent stuff! I must quote two of his references:

G. K. Chesterton “That a good man may have his back to the wall is no more than we knew already; but that God could have his back to the wall is a boast for all insurgents for ever... In this indeed I approach a matter more dark and awful than it is easy to discuss... a matter which the greatest saints and thinkers have justly feared to approach. But in that terrific tale of the Passion there is a distinct emotional suggestion that the author of all things (in some unthinkable way) went not only through agony, but through doubt... When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God. [Mt 27:46 quoting Ps 22:1] And now let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of the world, carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and of unalterable power. They will not find another god who has himself been in revolt... Nay (the matter grows too difficult for human speech), but let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.” [cf The Everlasting Man CW2:344]

“A Cross is a blunt and graceless form. It has not the completeness and satisfying quality of a circle. It does not have to grace of a parabola or the promise of a long curve... A cross speaks not of unity but of brokenness, not of harmony but ambiguity, it is a form of tension and not rest... The cross is the symbol because the whacks of life take that shape... And unless you have a crucified God, you don’t have a big enough God.” Joseph Sittler  quoted in Westhelle, V. “The Scandalous God: The Use and Abuse of the Cross” Fortress Press, Minneapolis 2006.

Check out also Cameron's blog with an interesting article entitled 'Zen and the paradoxical language of Jesus' Thanks to this guy I have decided to carry on reading Jurgen Moltmann's The crucified God. It is not easy reading but I realise in order to dig deeply into the richness of conscious awareness and not simply indulge myself therein I must also keep in focus the raw reality of the sufferings of Jesus on the Cross. This is where the Christian mysticism (seems to me at this point) takes leave of other paths. This contrast is graphically notable in that between the smiling Buddha inwardly blissful with eyes closed to the world and the suffering Saviour arms outstretched embracing the world. Perhaps we have another paradox to consider. The promise of peace as we become present to all that is and the promise of suffering through being part of this groaning creation ...

I also checked out Eckhart Tolle’s critics. One argued that all his stuff is borrowed not least from Schopenhauer’s ‘The emptiness of existence’. I read that and conclude that it is not true … there are vast differences. However another Christian I have somehow linked up with (can’t remember how) is Fr Richard Rohr … check out an excellent article entitled ‘Living a life less ordinary’. Relevant to this blog I quote:

The act of contemplation helps us to observe the “unobserved” or false self, and by so doing, to gradually detach ourselves from it. But it is not something that comes naturally in our culture. “We are a capitalist society, into accumulation, not detachment,” Fr Rohr says. “That’s why people are attracted to Buddhism. Buddhists have kept their vocabulary and their honesty about the need for detachment up to date, whereas we’re just people who have invested heavily in our own opinions and rightness, with disastrous results.” The secret to detachment, he suggests, is to learn how to live more fully in “the now, not the past or the future”.

He has a book coming out in September The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See … Think I just might get it … anyway time for my 20mins listening prayer!